50 Silver Street, Godmanchester

A Grade II Listed Building in Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire

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Summary

Description

PLAN:
The cottage is a two-storey structure, with a rectangular plan, having a single-storey extension to each of the north and south gable ends.

EXTERIOR:
50 Silver Street has a three-bay, two-storey elevation on to Silver Street and a three-bay, single-storey elevation facing west to Farm Hall. The steeply pitched roof has a clay tile covering. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a brick stack to each gable, and wrought-iron wall-ties. The east elevation has two bays of nine-pane, horizontal sliding sash windows, and those to the ground floor are vaguely camber-arched. A single-storey breakfront porch, with a lean-to clay-tiled roof, timber clad walls, and a timber-battened door sits central to the east elevation. The west elevation has two pointed-arched window openings, with gauged brick voussoirs, and timber-framed Y-tracery windows. The central pointed-arch door opening has matching voussoirs, and a timber plank and battened door. A single-storey extension was added to the north gable in the early C19, having a lean-to roof and a camber-arched window opening with a timber-framed casement window to the east elevation. The single-storey extension to the south gable end was constructed c1980, replacing an earlier lean-to extension. It has a timber-framed casement window to its south elevation, and a timber-battened stable door to its east elevation. This extension is architecturally modest and late in its date of construction, and is therefore excluded from the listing, as indicated on the map.

INTERIOR:
The cottage contains four principal rooms on the ground floor: a kitchen in the modern south extension, a dining room and a sitting room in the main core of the house, and a bathroom in the north extension. The main core of the house was formerly entered through the central porch, which contains an inner door to the sitting room. To the left of the porch, a timber plank and battened door grants access to the dining room, which contains an original red brick chimney breast on the south gable end, a stable door between the dining room and the kitchen, and an integrated cupboard on the north wall. To the left of the porch is a sitting room, which contains an original red brick chimney breast on the north gable wall. Opposite the door on the west wall is a timber battened door, which grants access to a steep stair to the first floor. At the top of the stairs are two bedrooms, one to the north and one to the south, each having a blocked fireplace on their gable walls.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES:
Outbuildings were constructed to the south-east, perpendicular to the entrance from Silver Street c1980. These lack historic or architectural interest and are therefore excluded from the listing.

History

Godmanchester developed on the site of a small Roman settlement, Durovigutum, which grew around the point where several Roman roads, travelling from the south, joined to cross the River Great Ouse at Huntingdon. Silver Street is identified as one of these, and is named 'Roman Way' on historic Ordnance Survey (OS) maps. The road was known as Duck End in the C19 and early C20, and is listed as such in the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England (RCHME) volume on Huntingdonshire, published in 1926. The OS map of 1926 refers to it as Silver Street.

50 Silver Street stands to the south-east of Farm Hall, a mansion of 1746 listed at Grade II*. Farm Hall was built for Charles Clarke (c.1702-1750), recorder of Huntingdon and Baron of the Exchequer. It is probable that 50 Silver Street was also built in the mid-C18, as an ornamental Gothic Revival building within the designed landscape of Farm Hall. The cottage is present on the one-inch OS mapping of 1835-6, the 1886 Town Plan and 1888 OS mapping. Both the 1886 and 1888 maps show a path from the cottage, heading north-east through the parkland of Farm Hall to the service buildings east of the mansion. The 1886 Town Plan also shows paths from the cottage heading south-east to Silver Street, and south to a pond. It is likely that the lean-to extensions to the north and south elevations were constructed in the early C19, and are shown on the late-C19 mapping. The extension to the south elevation was replaced c1980. Outbuildings were built to the south-east near Silver Street c1980.

Reasons for Listing

50 Silver Street, built c1750, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: as an ornamental estate cottage, constructed in the mid C18 in the Gothic style;

* Historic interest: as a component of the designed landscape of Farm Hall, a Grade II* listed mansion, constructed in 1746;

* Intactness: for the survival of the original interior plan, and the exterior features of the cottage;

* Group value: for the strong group value it holds with the nearby Grade II* listed Farm Hall, and the piers and railings, and claire-voie wall north of Farm Hall, which are also listed at Grade II*.

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